The Daily Stoic - No One Is Unbreakable | Keep The Rhythm

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Ryan explains how you can become incredibly resilient with Stoicism, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.The new Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the Cover to any mattress, and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music download the app today Welcome to the Daily Stoke podcast each day. We bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes illustrated with stories from history Current events and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoke, intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you're happy to be doing. So let's get into it. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think

you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking

water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So, if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app. No one is unbreakable. No one, not even a stoic, is unbreakable. No one, not even a stoic, is unbreakable.

We have a long history of the stoics being devastated by things. Kato, at the loss of his brother, Marcus and the victims of the plague, Seneca undone by his exile, stockdails body ravaged by seven years in the Hanoi Hilton. They did not simply shrug these things off. How could they? They were human beings. While stoicism promises to help you build an inner citadel, fortress of power and resilience that prepares you for the difficulties of the world, it makes no promises to make you a superhuman. A stoic isn't someone who's invincible. Stoic is someone who puts themselves back together so they can do what needs to be done

for themselves and for others. The stoics would have liked the Japanese art form known as Kansugi, which dates back to the 15th century. In it, masters repair broken plates and cups and bowls, but instead of simply fixing them back to their original state, they make them better. The broken pieces are not glued together, but instead fused with a special lacquer mixed with gold or silver. And the legend is that the art form was created after a broken T-bowl was sent to China

for repairs. But the returned bowl was ugly. Same bowl is before but cracked. Kansugi was invented as a way to turn the scars of a break into something beautiful. Courage isn't about being invulnerable. It's about getting back up. It's about healing. A stoic finds a way to be stronger at the broken places, as Epictetus did, literally,

after having his legs snapped by his torturous master. It's oddie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in American history, returning home damaged by war, unlike many veterans and trauma survivors with PTSD. But he decides that this will not define him. Suddenly, life faces us. You can clues in his memoir. I swear to myself that I will measure up to it. I may be branded by war, but I will not be defeated by it. You will lose people you love. You might be financially ruined by someone you trusted. You might put yourself out there,

put every bit of your effort into something and fail. And you might be passed over for the thing you wanted so badly. The question is, as always, what will you do with this? How will you respond? Will you let it defeat you? Will you put the pieces back together and be made stronger for what happened? That's the idea. When I say courage is calling, I don't mean you become this invulnerable robot who charges into deadly situations without a thought. No, to me, courage is the person who keeps going, who continues to hope, continues to try,

continues to work to improve themselves, who looks not just at out-scary things in the world, but scary things in themselves, one of the scariest things in the world, of course, to look in the mirror, to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to try to improve, to try to work on your own issues. So, that's what courage is calling, it's about, it's the new book for me. If you haven't read it yet, I'd to work on your own issues. So that's what courage is calling.

It's about the new book for me. If you haven't read it yet, I'd love for you to support it. If you have read it and there's someone in your life that could benefit from it, please do pass along the word. You can get sign copies for me in time for the holidays. It's stored.dailysteal.com. Of course, you can also get the audible ebook and get it Barnes and Noble, iBooks,

anywhere books are sold. I just hope that you support the book and I appreciate everyone who has so far. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. Hey y'all, I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo, just the name of you. Now I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Keepa Bag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bag love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do.

So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? family and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad.

I want to know, so I asked my mom about it. These are the questions that keep me up at night, but I'm taking these questions out of my head and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, no topic is off limits. Follow Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, whatever you get your podcast. Hey, prime members, you can listen early and app-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Keep The Rhythm

Marcus are really a must have known that as Emperor, he was part of a grand and great history. As a philosopher, he knew that all people are part of the rhythm pulsing through both history and their own lives. And he liked to remind himself not to lose that beat. Return to your philosophy, he would tell himself when he drifted, don't give in to distractions. In fact, he tried constantly to return to it. That kind of awareness, that paying special attention is something he learned reading from Epic Titus.

We told the students that, well, none of us can be perfect. We can catch ourselves when we begin to slide, we drift from where we should be. So can you feel that rhythm this week? Can you point to examples when you really feel locked into it? And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day.

There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself, and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stalk Journal, anywhere books are sold,

you can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stalk store, it's store.dailystalk.com. And we have two quotes from Marcus and one from Epictetus, walked along gallery of the past, of empires, of kingdoms, succeeding each other without number.

You can also see the future. For surely it will be exactly the same, unable to deviate from the present rhythm. It's all one, whether we've experienced 40 years or an Eon. What more is there to see? That's Meditation 749. And then Meditation 6 611 he says when forced as it seems by circumstances into utter confusion get a hold of yourself quickly don't be locked out of the rhythm any longer than necessary you'll be able to keep the beat if you are constantly returning to it and then epictetus is discourses 412 he says when you let your attention slide for a bit,

don't think you will get back a grip on it whenever you wish. Instead, bear in mind that perhaps because of today's mistake, everything that follows will be necessarily worse. Is it possible to be free of air? No, not by any means, but it is possible for a person to always be stretching to avoid air. And we must be content to at least escape a few mistakes by never letting our attention slide. I was thinking about

this and I remember I wrote an article wrote a blog post I'm looking at this this is March 4th 2012 so this is before this is this is trust me. I'm lying this mostly written, but it's not out. I Have moved to New Orleans. I'm Transitioning towards this sort of different life and anyways. I wrote I wrote a blog post on my site called return to philosophy and I'll read it to you I have written this post before but it remains a common theme the busier we get the more we work and I'll read it to you. I have written this post before, but it remains a common theme. The busier we get, the more we work and learn and read, the further we drift. We get an erhythm.

We're making money, being creative. We're stimulated and busy. It seems like everything is going well, but we drift further and further from philosophy. So we must catch ourselves and return to it. Pick up meditation, Santa Cappu-Tarque, Hadoo, our notecards as quotes and reminders. Anything from that shelf of great books. Stop and evaluate. Read something that challenges that informs. No matter how much learning or work or thinking we do, none of it matters unless it happens against the backdrop of an exhortative analysis. The kind rooted in the deep study of the mind

and emotion and demands that we hold ourselves to certain standards. We must turn to the practical, to the spiritual exercises of great men and actively use them. It's the only way we'll get anything out of the rest of our efforts. It's simple. Stop learning or working for a second and refine. Put aside all the momentum and the moment. Tap the brakes. Return to philosophy. And then I found the other post, which is wow, dated December 22nd 2009.

So, I guess I'm 22. And I wrote, lately I have felt off. As I felt down, it occurred to me how long it had been since I sat down and read philosophy. I knew I should fix this, but I didn't. A new book would come, and I'd immediately pick it up. I think I've spent so little time reading out, be ashamed to sit down with something I've read before. But this was a sham.

What I was doing was distracting myself. It's what Stephen Pressfield calls the resistance. I made myself busy so that I would have no chance to feel better. I knew that philosophy requires work and self-criticism and one inevitable conclusion that my problems were almost entirely my own fault. Their resolution requires an active process that only I can initiate. Philosophy is the tool with which to do so, as one would say, and I think this is Marcus Arrely's, I'm quoting, doctors carry their tools on their person or more ideally a boxer's tools are their

person. We should seek to do the same. There is no excuse for being too busy, too distracted, nor is there any alternative. So anyways, if you feel like you're slipping a little bit, know that I do that too, and I have now, for well over a decade and a half, and you just pick yourself back up, you go back to the rhythm as Marcus Relius says, you pick up your philosophy, you return to it, and you keep going. So I'll leave you there and I hope you pick up the rhythm this week and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast. Again, if you don't know this,

you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Just go to dailystoke.com slash email. So check it out at dailystoke.com slash email. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily Stoke early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today or you can listen early and add free with or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.